When in distress, go statistical

I'm such a Hermione.

Anyway, analysis of stuff going on inside my head since the news of the last post.

From the dates of the emails my uncle forwarded me, it looks like my sister wasn't released from the hospital for at least 3 days after the birth, which suggests she may have been the 3rd of my generation to birth via c-section (out of 4 of us thus far to have children). The baby is the 5th child of it's generation on that side of the family (as far as I know), and the one I'm carrying now will be the 6th (again, as far as I know). Liam was the 3rd born of his generation, but the first to be born vaginally (and also the first to be born in wedlock). One of my cousins who had a c-section (actually the first to birth of my generation) has since had a second child via VBAC (and had married her firstborn's father in between births).

So, as long as I'm not missing someone (I do also have male cousins and a brother, who presumably could have impregnated a girl that I'm not aware of - there are 15 members of my generation on that side of the family, 7 of us are female and one of the females is mildly mentally retarded, 3 of the girls are daughters of the uncle who informed me of my niece so I'm pretty sure if he'd had another grandchild he would have mentioned it on the phone, his eldest daughter - my only cousin older than I am - has been married for a few years now), and presuming that I'm able to birth this child as easily as I did Liam, and if I'm right about my sister's situation... out of the 6 members of Liam's generation, 3 were c-sections (50% section rate). All three of the other mothers of my generation were also 20-21 years old when their first babies were born (I was 27 when Liam was born). And all three of them had the constant presence of their fathers in their lives throughout their childhood (two of them are products of "intact" parental marriages and the other cousin has a very actively involved father).

I'm just marveling at the statistics a bit more because I don't fit in with them than any judgmental thing about unwed mothers or anything like that (heck, my mom had her second kid out of wedlock... my only real issue with it is how much more of a struggle it makes everything).

Another interesting factoid... of the 6 kids in Liam's generation, 5 are multiracial (apparently the father of my niece is Hispanic, and one of the cousins that has kids is herself half Puerto Rican, her kids' father is Mexican). Considering my paternal grandfather had a hissy fit and disowned my aunt for a couple years over her relationship with said Puerto Rican uncle (to whom she is still married ~30 years later, mind you - out of the 6 kids in my dad's generation only the two girls are still on their first marriages... 1 of the boys never married and my dad is on his second marriage, which has lasted ~27 years now)... I find it a little ironic that the majority of the great-grandchildren (thus far) of this guy are multiracial. This is my dad's dad, so you see, my dad comes by his dickwadness honestly at least. Like I mentioned in my comment response to Serena, we're taught how to cut one another out of our lives early and well in this family.

Oh, and since I blogged about it before... another interesting note. I've not cried about this finding out I'm an aunt thing. I'm a little surprised about that, since at this point the hormones have me crying over random commercials on prime time television. It's a dull ache but not the stabbing pain I thought it might be. I'm angry, but not surprised enough to be upset I guess. My dispassionate response at the moment is making me wonder how I'd have taken it if I'd heard a member of that side of the family died instead of being born.